Complex tasks such as Investigative Analysis and Business Intelligence gathering require the construction of high-level semantic inquiries, such as “Monitor all calls made by customers to a customer service rep”. However, the specification of the inquiries using a language such as the IBM Research's Inquiry Specification Language (ISL) or the closely related SPARQL language (part of w3c's semantic web stack of standards) is a low-level task. This mismatch—having to attend to the low-level task of query creation while engaged in the high level task of modeling—creates a severe disruption in the workflow of modelers.
The specification of a database (DB) query using graphical techniques and the characterization of the desired query results are not novel ideas. Existing work on queries on relational and other traditional databases show both of these techniques. Well-known examples include:
M. M. Zloof, “Query-by-Example: A Database Language,” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1977, pp. 324-343.
T. Joseph, A. F. Cardenas, PICQUERY: A High Level Query Language for Pictorial Database Management, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v. 14 n. 5, p. 630-638, May 1988 [doi>10.1109/32.6140]
N.-S. Chang and K.-S. Fu, “Query-by-Pictorial-Example”, IEEE Trans. on Software Eng, Vol. SE-6, No. 6, November 1980, pp. 519-525.
Using a graph to specify a query for a knowledgebase (KB) is also not novel. Prior art includes: A. Fadhil and V. Haarslev, GLOO: A Graphical Query Language for OWL ontologies. OWL: Experience and Directions 2006, Athens, 2006.